If you had to choose five social issues to devote your time, energy, or money to, what would they be?

As an American who has very strong beliefs about free thinking, free speech, and the idea that the government should serve the people and not the reverse, I’m often frustrated to see nuanced issues shifted into polarized, black and white debates. Since my views don’t fit neatly into our two-party system, I’m regularly misunderstood on my stance on a variety of issues. This was highlighted for me yesterday when a very intelligent friend for whom I have a great deal of respect asked if this WTF, CALIFORNIA? graphic I created meant that I supported gay marriage. My stance on that is a little more complicated. I support any union based on love, but I’m not sure if I want the government meddling in it. But at a time when millions are homeless or hungry in America, and our health care is in shambles, I wonder about how my intelligent liberal friends and I are utilizing our time, and perhaps more importantly, why wealthy (often religiously-motivated) individuals will spend $36 million dollars to ban gay marriage, but insist they don’t want to be taxed a little more to keep people alive and healthy. I mean, what are the priorities here? To assuage my personal progressive guilt, I’m doing a little work with a Kenya/US non-profit (consider joining us for the June 4 fundraiser, by the way), and also preparing a free program to teach basic computer skills to the homeless. This work feels a little feeble to me; I’d like to do more. If you had to name the 5 most important social issues of today, what would they be?

Education, Homelessness, health care, equal rights, and trying to fix the Environment. I think they are all connected on some level and if one is helped most can benefit.

Posted by Stella on 05.28.09 12:11 pm

For me ignorance and self cherishing are the roots of all the issues. Those two things have the ability to manifest in a zillion forms, most of which are detrimental to other beings.
I wish there was someway to incorporate formal and informal logic, and the reading of hundreds and hundreds of (good) books into school. Starting at about second grade. I think this would be a good start to changing the nature of we beasts.

It should come as no surprise that my #1 issues revolve around education. First, it needs to be funded. I’m tired of the unfunded mandates (NCLB, IDEA, and so on). Next, we need to fund PUBLIC schools…not charters. I know there are some huge (and talkative) fans out there, but I’m not one of them. I don’t like the way they refuse to take special ed kids or take them until “count day” and then send to “back” to us at public school. They are for-profit businesses and I just can’t play that. We need to rethink curriculum as well. I would love to see civics and government introduced way earlier, for example. And I’d also like to see vo-tech make its triumphant comeback. Not every kid is college material and college should not be the expected course for everyone. (And while we’re at it, let’s look at colleges too…some of those majors are jokes. Don’t get me started on professors’ salaries! ).
Beyond education, I’d love to see a return to personal responsibility. I’d like to see the first reaction to a stumble in a grocery store be “oops! my bad!” instead of “I’m gonna sue, fuckers!”